- Reverted Ascend -
by Lanny-Sama
Summary: Wilson decides that if purity means a life of unhappiness, he'd rather sin. No pairings. *fixed version*
1. Chapter 1

Co-written by Tjally and Catface. Reposted due to double-posting several paragraphs. Sorry for that :(

**- Reverted Ascend -**

Once the sun had set Wilson snuck out of his bed, entered the hallway and slowly made his way towards his father's study, tip-toeing past his parent's bedroom with held breath. With the door ajar and the moonlight illuminating his surroundings he slipped into the murky room and approached his father's desk. Crouching he retrieved his father's suitcase from it's hiding place just under the desk, spawning a cloud of dust as he pulled out the old thing. They would never miss it, he told himself. It wasn't... It wouldn't be stealing if... He cut himself off there, opening the case with a soft clack.

Inside he found a few of his father's forgotten clothes, some inconspicuous documents and even the illustrated bible his old man had accused him of burning when he was younger. It had been one of his earlier experiments, but that would have been infinitely worse to admit than the burning of his father's bible.

Once he had tossed aside the old junk he dragged the leather suitcase back to his own room - his shoulders tense as bowstrings when he snuck it past his sleeping parents.

Inside he put down the case next to his bed and began to pack everything he needed. He had already taken considerable time to collect his belongings for the journey, it would take only a minute or so to complete the task; both of the books he owned, two sets of clothing, paper, pens, ink, his notebook, all of the money he had saved, and last of all; the directions to an abandoned house near the town of Shanter, soon to become inhabited.

Once the last of his gear was stashed inside he silently closed the leather suitcase with a click, stood up and made his way towards the front door, crossing the hallway and descending the stairs before approaching the doorstep.

Even though the stairs had creaked under the weight of the heavy suitcase his parents remained asleep, and with a shiver he found himself hoping they would remain so forever, so they would never witness what he had done...

_"Son, don't listen to what those mad people say. Pity them instead. They lost their connection to God, and choose to plague His children with their nonsense"_

Staring at the door handle he took a moment to look around and soak in his familiar suroundings, feeling both queasy and excited at the thought of never seeing it again. A wooden cross looming over him- one of many in his parents' house - leered at him with fury judgement, reminding him of the many times the priests had forcefully tried to expel the demons from his body.

As silently as he could he grabbed a black winter coat - the warmest his mother owned - before slipping outside during the depths of the night.

When he was two streets away, snow began to silently fall on the roofs and streets, cloaking his departure.

Once at the train station he looked around and found the platforms nearly empty, only a few poor souls mulled around, spending the night on benches otherwise meant for travelers. Their bloodshot eyes gazed at him as he passed each one of them, and he hid behind his coat to avoid their fey looks.

_"Don't look at them Wilson... Oh, don't feel sorry for them. Their choices are what led them there, and God always gives His children what we deserve."_

Wilson shook his head and snowflakes fell out of his hair as he turned his focus towards the lights coming in from the distance. His ride had arrived.

With the huffing and puffing of old metal and steam the machine eventually came to a stop, the doors opened and Wilson went aboard.

Shivering he took seat in one of the empty wagons, looking outside he could see an immaculate blanket of white disappear into the dense forests. Less than five minutes later he watched his hometown slowly vanish from his sight, and tried to swallow down the knot in his throat. Where he'd be going, there would be no more crosses, holy water or other sacred things, only science.

_"Scientists are infidels, they speak nothing but lies!"_

Wilson fumbled with the handle on his suitcase. _Science is not devilry, Science is not sin, science is not devilry..._ He still only half believed it.

The train rode on for the night, and half of the following day, stopping every now and then to pick up other travelers or to drop them off at their point of destination. After what seemed like an eternity of passing from train to train, Wilson finally arrived at his destination; Shanter.

Shanter was an old town, and miraculously it had never grown large or diminished. It was rumoured to be cursed or so he had heard, so maybe that was the reason. A large pine forest on top of soft hills surrounded the village, and apart from the train station it was effectively cut off from civilization. It could very well be that was the reason if Shanter's neutral growth.

The people of the village were quiet and sullen, their eyes almost locked to Wilson's back as he passed them with his heavy suitcase. It took all the willpower he had not to break into a jog and run from their prying judgement, but in the end he managed to maintain his composure and continue his casual stroll. It seemed to take ages until he'd passed the last house, and even then the few minutes it took him to disappear into the forest felt longer that they were supposed to. As he closed in on his destination, he could still sense those strange and suspicious looks, staring right through the forest. He shivered.

_"How does God know what we do good and wrong? Why that's simple, He' is always watching us Wilson, we're not a moment alone in this cold world."_

Wilson had reached the end of the path, and a ragged house on top of a desolate hill appeared from behind the trees. A worn sign stood in front of it, proclaiming:

HAUNTED - DO NOT ENTER

Wilson walked up to the sign, pulled it out of the ground and tossed it down near the deteriorating fence. "Science knows no ghosts." Still, an eerie chill went down his spine as he continued towards the house, and the ominous creaking of the door made him think of the Devil's laughter. The inside was dusty, and only partially furnished. Of the furniture, the tables, bookshelves and a big chair were all covered in cloth, the white fabric thick with dust and grime.

He put his suitcase onto the table and took out the books he'd taken with him. Taken from the library just a few days ago. He hadn't dared to read them until now, and even just flipping them open had made him queasy in anxiety. God is always watching... Science says there is no God.

_"... People who are lost from God are the only ones bold enough to lie in the light of truth."_

He stared at the book, his fingers lingering on the cover. He could read all of it in peace and complete silence. There would be no one here to scold him for practicing science, no forced prayers, fearful looks, nothing of that! He flipped open the book and immersed himself in the detailed illustrations of a dissection, hundreds of small notes scribbles around to explain the use and nature of each individual muscle and sinew. Organs held almost half of the book, and in the very back were the obsecure instructions to a Scientific vivisection.

Wilson felt a half crazed smile creep over his lips, and he pulled the money from his suitcase, together with the half-burned notebook which held all of his theories.

He started putting all of it in their rightful places, coat in a corner, notes spread out on the table, and books finally flipped open and spread like eagle wings on the wooden surface of the table. It was a meager start, but it was more than he'd ever had before. This was his laboratory.

He started with the books that had always been forbidden to him from a young age.

"_Those books speak the Devil's words, boy!"_

"_Science is a dark art, a demon that attempts to stray you from the path of God, Wilson."_

"_What did you do to that mouse?! Why did you do this Wilson, answer me!"_

_"There he is, that strange little boy, stay away from him child, he's a devil"_

_"-hair like the devil's horns... Sometimes I worry so much father, what can I do?!"_

He didn't sleep that night, the two forbidden books absorbing all his attention until the very last word had been consumed. Once he'd finished, he feared for himself. What the books spoke of was devil work, evil and untruths, vile lies to mislead from the path of God, and yet it made him buzz in excitement and itch from longing.

He ran a hand through his hair, finding the strange crooked horns that refused to fall like normal hair ought to. His throat hurt.

_"- banish the demon from this child, let him once again follow the serene guidance of God! __Amen!"_

He stared at the illustrations in his book, and where disgust should have devoured him, only a hunger to imitate lingered within him. Wilson leaned back in his chair and tried to quell the knot that was in his throat. His arrival here had been the start, now the real work would begin.

He took a piece of paper and a pen, and started on his list of all the things he would need, copying nearly every other mentioned book from the ones he'd just finished. Then he took the wintercoat from its place in the corner and left his new house to buy at last the things he'd need for his first experiments.

It is only at midnight that he returns from his shopping spree, his suitcase stuffed full of new items and a cage with white mice squeaking under his arm. He nearly breaks a leg, running as fast as he can once he's exited the train. He doesn't even bother closing the door behind him when he runs inside - nor does he pay attention to the lenghty shadows quivering inside his house across the walls...

Once he has tossed his suitcase and the mice-cage onto the table he light a few candles.

His hands tremble when the instruments touch them, and with a smile almost wider than his face spreads them over the table. Sharp scalpels, small tools, drills, nails, chemicals in small jars, glass beakers and tubes...Even a book that would have gotten him lynched in his hometown!

He reaches into the mice cage and pulls out a fat struggling mouse from the straw. He could see it now, his eyes glancing over the white critter: he could cut it open, and nobody would be drowning him in holy water, or scolding him.

The idea was nearly enough to bring him to the brink of despair. Would he? Could he do it? He wanted to, yet his stomach roiled and his eyes watered. Selling his soul, buying his one-way ticket to hell. Undoing all the priests and prayers had done for him in order to keep him on the holy path of God.

He held the mouse to the table, and hammered its paws to the table. "Oh lord...I am weak, I am weak! I can't resist... Please, lord, forgive me, forgive me..."

The mice in the cage screamed and squeaked, the one pinned to the table wailing in agony. Wilson fumbled with the case around the scalpels and nearly cut his hand on the blades. He could barely call it science, what he did to that mouse. His cut was messy and the organs were left ruined beyond recognition beneath the little pools of blood. His throat ached but he couldn't get himself to stop smiling. It was complete and utter freedom!

As the creature died on the table Wilson laid the scalpel aside, peering into the dying flesh from above. Even as unrecognizable as the organs were, it was a delight to observe without the fear of discovery. There would be no screaming maids, hiding the little corpse. He could even leave it and see how it would dry or rot in humid or dry locations! Try out all the different forms of mummifcation or body preserving! Bringing them back from the dead, giving them intelligence, immortality. What was there to stop him now!?

_"This is not right Wilson, you're sick. You can't keep doing this! Promise me you never do anything like this again!"_

The next day he went into town again, coming home with two nervous rabbits in a box and even stranger things he needed for his scientific research. A few people in the town gave him strange looks and whispered behind his back, and Wilson wished fervently none of them would get the idea to follow him. One woman in particular sent a terrible chill down his spine, so much did she look like his mother. As he fled the town he swore he could see a woman's shadow stalking him...

_"Please, don't hurt him! He is but a child!"_

_"But is there no other way?! There has to be another way!"_

_"How could you do this to me again Wilson..."_

He nearly crashed into an old woman, but her angry words couldn't drown out the voice.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 **

Wilson wrung his hands and blew a warm breath over his freezing fingers. The winter coat he'd taken from his home enveloped his body and a measly fire burned in the fireplace. On the table before him laid a shoddy book on alchemy, paired with notes, all on an ancient goal of alchemy; making gold out of coal.

He'd preferred an experiment on extending life, immortality, new dimensions, portals, making new creatures... Anything really, but the sad fact was that he had no more money left to spend.

_ "Besides the fact that it is evil, it does not ear you money either. You'll end up poor, crazy and mad... in a ditch! Learn a proper skill, don't let the devil deceive you!"_

Wilson's hand twitched and he clenched it into a fist. He'd used up most of his paper as well, and was forced to write in the blank pages of his books, but if this worked, he could forever continue his experiments, with the very best equipment! He leered at the fire and crumpled one of the notes next to him.

Outside the snow fell - tranquil, mesmerizing and relentless. There had been many a time where a snowflake's shadow had flitted over Wilson's note or creeped over the walls, sending his heart beating at double the rate. He'd hung one of the white cloths used to cover the furniture before the windows, but he couldn't tell if it was an improvement or not. Barely any light found its way into the room, and the light that did make it through only made the shadows thicker and longer.

He jotted down a note on a crumpled piece of paper with a quick shiver; 'is it possible to have light without a visible shadow? Further investigation would be required.' The fire flickered and his own shadow slid over the floor like a horned snake before being replaced by the fire's light once more.

He stood up and dragged the table a little closer to the fire, the shadows circling him mockingly as he did so.

He turned back to his notes and snuggled a little deeper into his mother's winter coat. Finance had never been his strong point. Only two weeks on his own, and he already found himself without food, water, clean clothes and money. For all his self-proclaimed genius, he was a fool, and a damn good one at that.

He should have waited until spring before he left, he should have found a way to sustain himself, should have found a job, or donators, he should have-

_ "You should have been the child we told you to be."_

Wilson shot up from his chair and threw his mother's coat into the corner, where it curled up like an animal, and drew away into the darkness.

The wind blowing through the old abandoned house chilled his bones as if his flesh wasn't even there, and he shifted closer to the fire.

He could barely feel his fingers as he finished his last theory, and he wished he'd had the smarts to take gloves from his home too.

_ Thief._

The fire nearly died out, and Wilson stood up and reached for the pile of old furniture he had decided to burn. He hadn't found an axe anywhere in the house, and on top of that, science was more important than a fire. At least that had been his train of thought a week ago, when there were plenty of dusty logs left to burn.

He returned to the fireplace and threw a chair leg into the blaze. The varnish hissed when it vapourised into a filthy dark cloud, tainting the room with a noxious stench.

Standing up he took the most promising of his theories, and walked to his supply closet. The cage that had been full of mice a good three weeks ago stood filthy and nearly empy on one of the shelves with only two scrawny mice left inside, and a jar next to it held the other mice, flayed and suspended in liquid. It hadn't been preserving as well as he'd hoped, and a foul green slime was forming on the mice's skin.

None of his experiments had worked to far. No matter how good his theories were, they always managed to blow up in his face or dissolve into thick drab liquids. Only the dissections had gone right, but in all fairness, that was not true science, only a rediscovery of what had already been known for ages. He wanted to discover something new! Something that nobody had ever even thought of discovering!

He propelled the last volley of wood into the fire and threw a look at the winter coat lying like a sleeping panther in the corner of the room. He had some materials left to experiment with. He could only hope one of them would bring him the solution and money he needed. If they didn't... He shivered, and maybe this time it wasn't because of the cold. His father had more often than not threatened to lock him up in an asylum.

Once, he'd even taken Wilson to the asylum in a city nearby, showing him the people that preached humans could fly faster than birds, or said they were the incarnation of Jesus, or the ones that scared Wilson the most: the people that said the very same things that sometimes crossed his own mind.

_ "This is what happens to people like you Wilson, if you don't watch out, I won't have a choice but to bring you here..."_

His life ending due to untreated hypothermia in an abandoned house was far more likely. He would never go back to his parents, not unless three armed men dragged him there under the threat of sedation! And even then...

Wilson tried to rub the cold from his arms and got up from his place near the flames. He collected all he needed for his experiment. It was a sad little heap. It should have been his first experiment instead of the last! How did he ever believe he could find something valuable in a mouse's gut?

_ The same way you believe in anything..._

Wilson could swear he heard that voice coming from the darkness again, but there was only the house and the jacket he'd tossed away earlier. The silence was unnerving, and the birds held their tongues as the snow fell. Still, he knew someone whispered, just out of his sight out there in the darkness. He refused to linger on the thought of his house being haunted, and he got to arranging his experiment. Heating one subtance, putting in a sample of this and that, mixing... It was a tedious process, and his toes started to feel numb by the time he'd arrived at the last step.

A crow cawed outside, and nearly made him leap backwards. The fire crackled weakly and the house groaned as if an unhearable wind was trying to tear it down. Wilson stared into the dark hallway that connected the rooms of his house together, and vowed to clean out all the trash and haunted items as soon as he'd find the time. Or, knowing himself, he would find something to act as a door, so he would at least not have to look at it anymore.

Another whisper beguiled him, and mentally he added a gramophone to the list of things he wanted to build. Or a dog. Anything that would make noise! The crow outside cawed again and Wilson nearly dropped the glass beaker holding half of his experiment unto the floor. Always be carefu of what you wish for.

He'd hesitated mixing the two substances. He didn't want to think about what he'd have to do if this failed. There was always a choice, people often said. Yes, a choice. He could go back, right into a straightjacket. He could leave this house for a city with more food in its trashcans. He could steal... What choices there were...

He tilted the glass in his left hand slightly and the two substances began to mix, forming a perfect golden solvent. Before he knew it the glimmering subtance began to foam, forming pockets and bubbles of air across the interior of the beaker and heating the glass to the point were Wilson nearly lost grip of it trying to put it down. He had only a split second to dive away when he saw the gold turn into surging foaming brown. The glass shattered and the remains of his experiment flew through the room, making large stains on the old wood. In a last desperate thought he hoped that maybe the remains of the experiment would turn out to be gold, but there was only brown drab to show for his efforts. he failed.

He staggered back from his desk, and let himself fall into the chair, the fire began to die out again. He had failed.

_ Say pal._

Wilson jerked up from his chair at the voice. His eyes glanced across the room and before long he found himself starting at an old radio next to the window, broken and hidden from sight behind a small pile of notes. He reluctantly strode over to the table, and took the broken piece of equiptment lifted it up in his hands. Could it have been...?

_ Looks like you're having some trouble!_

Wilson nearly dropped the thing, and stared at the unplugged chord. He looked at the remains of his experiment. Was he hallucinating? The radio was oblivious to his confusion, and the deep voice cheerfully continued its dialogue. The house was wisphering again.

_I have secret knowledge I can share with you, if you think you are ready for it._

Secret knowledge? Wilson's hands trembled. It could be all he needed, it could be the key to anything! He nodded, trying not to think of how insane this all was. The radio stayed quiet for a short moment, before the voice gleefully added;

_ Ok then!_

He didn't know what the voice did, or how it happened, all he knew was that it happened in a split second. Barely more than a moment. Wilson stood petrified, the radio lifted above his head and his eyes staring into the distance. He knew so much, but even as he let the radio drop from his hands he knew there was one theory, one idea he simply had to test right away;The interstellar machine.

It was the most fascinating device the voice had entrusted him, blueprints almost palpable before his mind's eye and half-frozen fingers knowing the ins and outs of every detail.

But in the end, the fact that he built it first had more to do with the fact that all he needed was close by. It was complex, but almost frighteningly easy to build. It barely needed more than spare wood and old mechanical pieces! Wilson had more than enough of those after he'd disassembled the furnace and all other remotely metallic things in the house. He didn't stop wondering why such a powerful machine would only require wood, scrap, a pint of blood and a few shards of glass...

He worked throughout the night, his head feaverishly hot and his hands cold, and at noon of that cloudy day, the machine stood finished.

Wilson stepped back, and gazed upon his creation. It was a portal, to a world unknown, undiscovered... His bloodied arm reached for the handle and his fingers curled around the knob.

_ "Wilson... I'm warning you!"_

He stood frozen for a split second, the voice echoing in his head, before the radio behind him crackled to life one last time.

**_ DO IT! _**

He pulled the handle down with one fell swoop, and the voice from the radio seemed to pour into the room, laughing deep and contently. He'd made a mistake. The machine moved and deformed, lamps and gears suddenly morphing into a wide grin and gleaming eyes. He'd summoned the Devil. He had given into the ancient, very first sin of curiosity, and this was his reward.

Black hands slithered like snakes over the ground, and reared off the old wooden planks like cobra's. Before Wilson could do so much as blink, they had him in their grip, pulling him through the ground, the machine grinning at him as he disappeared.

"... igh. ..mes."

_ "...night comes."_

_ "...before night comes."_

_ "-to eat before night comes."_

Wilson shot upright, hands tangling in grass and head spinning. The radio, the machine. He sat in a flower field, surrounded by nature. The sun shone brightly, and a rabbit poked its head out of its home. All was peaceful, tranquil, even beautiful, and something was very very wrong. The world was without light.

Something dark moved in the corner of his eye, and this time, he couldn't blame it on the shadows moving before the candlelight.

He needed to find people, a village, a phone or telegraph. Anything to lead him back to humanity, but the skies were clear of smoke, and the only roads he found were dirt tracks, scattered with the footprints of wild pigs.

It felt like he'd only been there for a few hours when the sun started to dip below the horizon, feeding the shadows to grow thick and large.

The sun sank so fast that he could see the shadows grow, like fat catterpillars feeding on a collection of leafs, preparing to transform into something far greater. The shadows were everywhere! With trembling hands he rushed back to where he'd started, yanking grass out of the ground and snapping branches of small trees.

"God is the bringer of light. He is our guidance in darkness, Wilson."

The sun vanished below the horizon, and the dusk devoured the world, leaving him in such pitch blackness that he was barely able to find the flint to ignite the little pile of grass and twigs he had collected. The darkness enveloped him, like a hand curling around him to squeeze his guts out, and as sparks flew off the flint in his hands he could hear the bloodcurling whisper of a demon in his ear.

Right as he felt the claws dig into his skin, the twigs caught on fire, creating a tiny beacon of light in a cimmerian landscape. The hands were gone. Only the small wounds from where the claws had pricked him were left behind.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Wilson poked a stick into the fire and tipped over one of the logs he'd thrown in. His base was a filthy squalid mess: rotten vegetables and butchered rabbits littered the site and a nearby carcass spread a particularly unpleasant odour.

He hadn't seen the need to clean them up. The snow covered them well enough in his opinion. Who was here to see him anyway? The pigmen?

No. The pigmen were not real. Even though he could smell them from far away, and see the water vapour in their breaths condense in the cold air, they were not real. They could not be, so they weren't. Easy as that.

Then again, he'd seen see-through monsters, impossible creatures... Even death. He had died.

It was a strange but eerie memory that nearly drove him to burst of nervous laughter, so utterly unusual it had been. He'd been careless and hungry. Starving he had attempted to attack a large buffalo-like creature for its flesh... He hadn't counted on the whole of its pack joining in the fray however.

Their horns hadn't looked so sharp when he first saw them, but they ripped through him easier than he would have initially found possible.

As soon as the herd geared into action he had tried to sprint away from them, only for one of the haughty creatures to bowl him over. The ones following him hadn't slowed their sprint, a full-out stampede marched over him.

The large hooves mashed his legs and back into a fine powder. He'd unleashed a ghoulish sound and the sun had turned dark. Then as soon as it happend he'd found himself flung back to the earth (how had he ascended to begin with?) landing flat on his back in between the impaled pig heads he had found some time earlier.

He just laid there, staring up into the sky, the rays of the sun engraving their image into his retina. He moved his legs, stretched them - nothing wrong there, he could even feel his toes! He repeated the same procedure for his arms, and once he stood up he found his back was alright even more so.

Did that just... happen? He could have sworn his back was broken, he had felt vertebrae penetrate his skin He shivered. He'd lost his winter jacket, and his backpack... What had happened?!

Contemplating the whole thing hadn't helped, so he returned to where he'd found the herd. After half a day of travelling he arrived at the field where he'd met his demise. The herd was gone, but his backpack - stained with blood - was still there, all his items still intact.

He used a different backpack now. The other one he'd flung into the sea.

It had become more and more clear to him, that, no matter how much he thought otherwise; he was irrevesably lost. He'd lost his home, his parents, his mind, God... All that remained was science - as bleak as it sounded.

He could hear his parents speaking sometimes, like they were there with him. They whispered at night, and kept him from sleeping... He hadn't slept for days - or was it weeks? But that was okay. Everything was _okay._ It was a lot more convenient to adjust his standards of what constituted 'okay' instead of admitting to his despair. He only had food for one more day, consisting mostly of old toasted seeds. That was okay too. He heard his parents talking to him, reenacting entire sections of his life even, and that was... that was not _okay _yet. But it might be, in time.

He was balancing on the edge of the abyss. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel the ground stopping right beneath his toes. One last push and he would be gone. It was a waiting game, he felt it. The Devil, the one that brought him here, was driving him to the edge. Not with hands on his back, or a threat, but by simply making the fall seem more appealing than the ground.

His stomach rumbled, and he shivered. The fire was dying out, and he had nothing but rotten food to keep it going. He hadn't dared to leave his camp in days... Lest that...

Something growled in the distance, but the rest of the world's creatures refused to speak out. He needed to get something to eat, wood to keep his fire going, and some warm clothing to get through the winter. And he needed gold, he needed gears, he needed rabbits, he needed raw flesh, beardhair and wood... He had the knowledge. He STILL had the knowlegde! He could do so many things, if only he was still at his home, with gold, tools, money, rats, ink, parchment, lamp oil...

The devil knew his torture well. You'd think someone who listened to his unholy prayers would be rewarded somehow. He'd done God-loathing things in the name of science, he'd done the devil's work! Unwittingly, like the fool he was, but he did it.

God was not forgiving at all, he discovered. He hadn't known, couldn't have known! He was a broken creature, tainted from the beginning! Shouldn't God have seen that he simply wasn't able to tell wrong from right?!

His thoughts quieted, and Wilson dropped half a hand full of dried grass into the fire to keep the night at bay. He was incomplete, and everyone but he had known it. He'd been here long enough to realize at least that much. His parents had kept him inside the house not to keep him safe, but to keep his evil idea's away from the other children.

A wolf howled in the distance, and a dozen more answered its call. Wilson dropped the last of the grass into the fire and stood up, janking his spear out of the soil. Think time was over, now it was the time for disembowling, though not in the way he liked it. The hounds howled louder, sending shivers down his spine, his eyes flickering over to where he'd heard them. Left, right, front, rear...

They never made the same noises when they came close. Up close, they were like overgrown dogs with an appetite for all moving creatures, but right before attacking they sounded different. Sometimes they sounded close, sometimes far off... Sometimes he suspected that it was his own paranoid mind that manufactured those abominable sounds, keeping him on the edge, or that it was the devil again, playing cruel tricks with his mind.

The hounds growled and barked, the rustling bushes signalling their arrival, and three blue hounds burst forth.

Wilson's cold hands clamped firmly around his spear and he struck the most menacing pose he could manage. They charged! One of the blue monsters lunged towards him. Swiftly he leaped sideways, dodging the fell creature. With only the dim light of his meagre fire illuminating his surroundings he wished he'd had stockpiled more wood and beast, trying to re-adjust its legs for another attacks stood still just long enough for Wilson to jam his spear into its head. The hound whined and wailed as Wilson struck it, and it recoiled from the pain.

But the other two were too fast.

Jaws snapped shut around his spear, and in very short game of pulling, it was torn from his grasp.

He could swear the beasts were grinning at him as they advanced, his spear discarded in the snow behind them. The snow crunched beneath their paws, and Wilson had a fleeting vision of hundreds and millions of tiny little bones breaking between their jaws.

The hounds leaped into the air, and Wilson ran - as fast as he could.

His only defensive and offensive capability laid discarded in the snow. More hounds rushed him towards, from all sides they seemed to spawn into existence. While he had learned that Hounds were pack-animals, they now came from all sides in overwhelming numbers, like all the lone wolves in a region suddenly deciding they were up for a group-kill.

It was as if the whole forest had come alive. From every shadow a new monster rose, small black monsters skittering away before his feet, hounds coming from all directions, and a terrible ringing in his ears made thinking impossible. All that he could think of were stupid thoughts, like whether the shades would try to eat him, and if the hounds would let them. He passed his father and mother in his run for survival, shouting at him, but he couldn't hear them over the whispering and yowling in his head.

Great rocks flew by him as he ran, the ground growing hard and dead beneath his feet. He felt hot hound-breaths against his heels, and tried to ignore the burning sensation in his muscles and the cold in his hands. One step after another, running as fast as he could, and all of a sudden there was no more ground to walk on.

He fell into a pit of darkness, terrible yowls and screeches following him into the depths, claws scratching at his face while he fell. Flashes of blue spun past him, rumbling and growling whirling past him, red eyes watching as he fell. He screamed, his spear long lost, and a glowing wall of cyan seemed to rush towards at him. He smashed into it, blue mushrooms snapping off the trunks and showering him in spores, bits and thick fungal sap sticking on his skin.

The ground was an icy cold, as if standing on a frozen lake. And the glowing mushroom tree made it glimmer in an unreal fashion. Outside the neon ring of blue light cast by the tree, there was darkness. A pitch-blackness.

Wilson looked up, gazing at a cloud of spores he had left in his wake, twinkling from the blue light emitted by the mushroom tree. Yet he couldn't see the hole he'd fallen through. Like it had never been there. Like HE had never been there.

A whining yowl far above him had him crouching towards the tree for cover, hiding beneath it's thick gills A hound smacked to its death only a few meters from where Wilson himself had landed. The animal hadn't been lucky enough to land on the soft mushroom padding... Another sickening crack sounded in the dark, and something moist and warm shot up into the air and smeared its way across Wilson's hands and face.

The blood was so warm to touch that it felt like fire to his fingers. He stared into the darkness, where a sizeable source of thermal energy was slowly going to waste. Warm meat, thick winter wolf fur... He didn't move from his spot.

There was no light but the glowing tree he'd fallen on top of. For all he knew, the ground could end right there in the darkness! He looked up, but there was still no daylight to be seen. All the light had gone, except for the glow emitted by that mysterious blue mushroom.

He let out a hicupping laugh. Science, science could do anything, but not without the basic survival needs. No food, no warmth, no home, no water, no companionship.

He pulled at his hair and curled up beneath the glowing mushroom tree. He was disfunctional, demonic, insane, crazy! His hands clutched some strands of hair, and he threw them into the dark. If he couldn't trust his own judgement, what could he trust?! What was a devil's ploy and what was salvation?!

He was broken, one of God's rare mistakes, he couldn't see the difference between good and evil!

"We told you that so many times, tried to save you, warn you.."

Wilson shivelled around to where he'd heard his mother's voice, but there was only darkness, and eerie silence.

Maybe this was another aspect of hell, the uncertainity. Was she here, as an illusion to taunt and punish him, or was he hallucinating?

The tree rocked back and forth almost unnoticably, allowing strange shadows to slide in and out of view. Were there monsters in the shadows, or was the darkness a monster it self?

Someone whispered in his ear, and he swatted at the air. Another voice uttered a hushed laugh that seemed to originate from inside his head.

A warm gust of air stroked his skin, and he dove away, hearing the snap of jaws closing where he had been. He turned his head in panic, finding his surroundings just as tranquil as they had been before. devoid of any living creatures. The shadow licked at his heels, and he staggered back once again.

The whispers became louder, like ghosts gliding closer towards those they haunt. WIlson stared into the darkness and clutched the stem of the mushroom tree. They were closing in on him. He could feel their hands and appengades all over him, slowly tightening their grasp on his limbs and throat. The mushroom tree's light was weakening, bits of dead plant raining on top of him and spores drifting around him like snowflakes in the winter.

The small shadows cast on the ground by the spores slowly ate up the remaining light, making his world of light smaller, smaller and smaller. There was no alternative, no solution.

A shadow monster scuttled into the ring of light, and Wilson flung himself into the darkness. The whispers were lost to him as the floor seemed to melt beneath his feet, and a grinding growl drowned out all sounds. Music played, his next step hit air, and he fell into a thick wall of snow.

He couldn't feel his arms or legs, and his nails were blue. He pushed himself up from the snow, and was blinded by the winter sun. The whispers had gone silent, and the mushroomtree was nowhere to be seen. Spores stuck to his clothes. The shadows, for once, were frozen in their place, and the sun hung from the sky like a mouse nailed to the wall. Dead, empty and still.

A trail of foot steps laid in the snow, leading up to where he sat shivering in the cold. No howling, no barking, no whispers in the dark, no sign of his camp. The trees were bare and slim. He turned around, and followed the track he had left in the snow. Thin clouds drifted before in front of the sun, and snowflakes fell.

Beneath the snow, just a few feet off, a mangled black-purple hound laid hidden.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 **

Everything was dead silent as he followed the snow trail. It had never been this silent, not even when he was at home. There had always been whispers, soft music playing in the air, even the sound of the moving shadows... Not even the snow crunched, too flaky and fine to make any noise.

It was almost as if the world itself was frozen in time, together with all its sounds and shadows. He peered up at the sun as it hung motionless in the sky. Had it always been that way? So slow? ... His body would not stop shaking and he shook the snowflakes out of his hair. No, this world was wrong, it was a trick! It must be!

It seemed eerily similar, too similar, like he'd been here before, at a different time... A barred box stuck out of the snow, and almost as if they'd waited fro him to look at the cage, a herd of rabbits and mice flew from the container, screaming like pigs under the chopping knife. They dispersed into the forest, black and filthy coats melting into the snow seamlessly.

The house seemed to appear in much the same way, like it materialized there as soon as it realized Wilson was coming near. His home. After all those months in purgatory, the whispers and doubts, failed experiments... He'd found his way back, and still... It was wrong.

Shards of wood were missing from the door, and in the snow laid lumps, where there'd never been anything before. Instead of an old house, it reminded him more of a ravenous creature, frozen in hunger. It wasn't his house.

He'd never wanted anything more than turn around and walk away from that house. It had been a cursed place before, and he had no wish whatsoever to see what it had become now!

He stared at the silently enraged house. His toes ached with a burning sensation, and his fingers refused to bend at his will. The broken door was blown open, and warm air rushed over him like a wet breath. Befoe he knew it he was stumbling through the snow, into the abandoned house. Following the warmth.

He had called ghosts folly, in another lifetime, but he could feel the countless eyes gazing at him from the enrounding darkness as he closed the half-splintered door behind him.

The house's promise of warmth was met short, but a filthy yellow glow from the living room urged him on. Glowing embers hissed angrily in the fireplace as he stepped into the livingroom, and the shadows coiled for a fraction of a second. They were still there.

He kneeled near the embers, on a carpet of damp papers. He nearly stuck his hands into the embers as he tried to warm them, and flung in a stack of the papers.

He'd never written that much. Another flaw. He threw more of the papers onto the embers, and a dark plume of ash came from the fireplace.

Something slid over the floor with a rustling hush, and he spun around. A growling beast stood frozen on the floorboards, the snowflake shadows drifting over it like dots on a spotted dog.

That was a flaw too, Wilson thought, as he almost tripped into the smoking fire. His mother's jacket did not move, and it had never attempted to kill him before!

The jacket crumpled into a heap of fabric almost lazily, and once done just laid there quietly. His back was getting warm, and the smoke was making his eyes water, but the winter coat was still there...

There was an axe on the bureau -another flaw, another mistake, it hadn't been there before-, and Wilson snuck his hands around the hilt. He slammed the crude blade down right into the coat, and stood on furred sleeves.

It laid motionless and did not produce even the faintest sound. Not even when he yanked out the axe, and threw the coat into the fire. Only then did it thrash. Soundless, the elegant coat writhed and coiled in the flames, the smell of singed hair and burning egg drifting from the fireplace.

He'd won this battle, at least. He tried to rub the cold from his arms again, and sat near the fire the axe laying across his lap. He didn't want to think about what would have happened had he slipped into the coat...

The old radio watched him in complete silence from its place on the desk, but he didn't hear the devil anymore.

Wilson stared at the old piece of equipment, and cracked a weak grin. "You messed it up. You did it all wrong! I'm not back home, you made a fake, and I saw through it!" The radio didn't answer.

Wilson's smile faded. "I'm not home..." He could hear the Devil laugh, and a load of snow thumped down before the window, blocking the light from outside. The shadows lunged for him with a barrage of snarls and howls, the fire flickering and hungry eyes reflecting off the head of his axe.

They froze just as sudden as they had moved, claws still stretched, coiled around the legs of the bureau and hesitating beneath his feet. Wilson couldn't relax his fingers, curled tightly around the the axe handle and reluctant to let loose. The old soft creaking of the house planks slowly made way for a rushed static, and the hint of an all too familiar tune cheery tune.

He couldn't be in this house any longer. The claws curled and uncurled, waiting for him in the dark, and he pulled the still burning cloak from the fire, showering the room in cinders and light. The shadows recoiled, and Wilson dove for the hallway, where the crack of the front door split the dark in tiny strips.

It was just as cold outside as it had been before, and he fell into the snow, cold and rotten food sticking to his hands when he pushed himself upright. Everything in this world was even more wrong than the world he'd been in before!

He had to do stop the illusion, kill the fakes and strip off their masks! Make them show him their true faces! He clenched his hands firmly around the axe's handle, and slammed it into the house's front door. It was fake, it was not a door, it was a devil's piece!

Blood dripped from the cuts, a tooting screech becoming louder and louder the more he hacked. Black feathers flew about like a storm of ravens flew from the dark, and the door finally broke loose from its hinges. A bleeding red eye stared right at him, before the thing dissolved right there on the house's steps.

Wilson shivered as the cold began to seep back through his skin and into his muscles. It was still wrong.. The house had had a door, before he'd gone through the devil's machine! He stepped away from the house. It was no use, the whole house was wrong, not just the door...

This wasn't his house. It was an impostering lair of evil! A shudder that was not only from the cold rattled him as he imagined where he had sat. In the belly of the beast?... He turned his back to the motionless copy of his house, and blew a warm breath into his free hand. The track to Shanter was invisible, hidden under a thick layer of snow, but no tree grew near the path. He couldn't remember if that was wrong or not.

He'd never paid attention to the road, only to the materials he was carrying.

Behind him the old house crackled like old paper, and as he turned, the very skin of the construction began to peel off and... vapourise.

Before him the whole structure slowly turned to dust, the roof caving in with a muffled whump.

It stood like a carcass of its former self, black feathers drifting down from the collapse. It had never been his house, WIlson told himself. It had only been a creature, a devil posing as such! Everything in this world, was posing for something it was not! He kept the axe at the ready as he walked, but neither trees nor the road under the snow peeked from behind their masks.

It was the smell that alerted him to the thing. He wouldn't have noticed otherwise, hidden in the shadows and coated with snow. It stank terribly, but it looked even worse. Half blackened flesh was peeking out from between crude planks, and a tiny but horrifying smile stared him down.

It was a visage of himself, nailed to a tree, bursting with rotting flesh and blood-clotted hair. Human fingers poked out the side, frozen in a pained claw with nails black from decay.

It was a sight so bizarre that he nearly dropped his axe in the cold snow. A deep chuckle resounded through the forest, together with a few passing notes of that terrible song that seemed to haunt him wherever he went.

Of course, a trick, a trick to send him into terror and confusion! The Devil knew his weaknesses... Alwasy trying to find the reasoning behind something, rules and systems that might not even be there, but not this time. It was a trick, and thinking about it would only make it worse!

He resolved to leave it there and continue on his way, but when he passed the crude sacrifice that looked so much like him, he found himself slamming his axe in the meat-filled head anyway. The idea of having it watch him as he left was too much.

He would have burned it if he could have, together with the rest of the hell he was trapped in. Maybe he would have enjoyed it too, after all this cold...

The village looked deserted. The windows were broken or boarded shut, and countless large snowlumps laid on the road. The train station was overgrown, and a fat monstrous train lingered on the tracks. Still, somehow there came soft music from the tavern, and the broken street lanterns still managed to give off a glow.

He didn't know what to do. He had nothing to make a fire with, and even though light shone from the houses, he doubted that they would be warm inside.

Something tapped him on the shoulder, and he shot forward, nearly falling into the snow as he turned around.

He looked up and was confronted by a ghastly figure standing before him, its torn skin ripped into thin filaments stretched across its body and its empty orbits exchanging a stare of death, as if looking straight through him.

Wilson stood aghast for a moment with his mouth gaping in awe.

That must have been wrong, impossible! Because as soon as it had spotted him, it vanished, only to reappear somewhere else. No wait. That was not the same one!

Like specks of dust in a lightbeam, the transluscent beings now emerged all around the town, hollow eyes oozing a thick putrid fluid.

Another one of the things materialised right next to him, and Wilson stumbled backwards, his foot sinking into one of the many snowlumps on the road. Something cracked under his left foot. Before he knew it he lost his balance and fell into the snowpile. A set of blunt and curved shards of bone protuding through the heap of snow poked into his back and he let out a moan of pain. The axe had fallen from his grasp as he'd tried to catch himself, and he rolled off the thing that had been hidden under the snow.

A rib cage stuck upward from beneath the white. Discoloured and unrecognizable flesh stretched around and beneath.

Like the universe had planned a surprise party for him, the snow was blown away out of the streets, revealing similair sights. Bleak and frozen skeletons accompanied by long-gone spirits still wandering the haunted village.

The figures froze in place as the snow was blown from their open graves, and their first eery appearance soon became a terrifying one. Eyes he had not even seen before set a lock on him, and enraged whispers roared through the streets like a storm.

DEFILERS!

LET US REST!

GRAVE ROBBER!

They advanced on him, with all kinds of accusations and anger from beyond their graves, and even if he'd managed to find his axe in time, he still would have run. He turned and made it a reality, leaving his only weapon to rest in the snow.

He could only hope they would stop following him at one point, or disappear. Their moans and screams followed him just as quickly as their ghastly appearances did, switching between terrified screams and raging howls.

The forest was once again his only route of escape. Maybe he would even return to the house, the belly of the monster...

The howls had faded into the distance, and the sorrowed screams became more human the further he got away. It was a treacherous voice that begged him to go back, so they would at least not sound so human anymore.

The snow was biting into his legs, his feet feeling limb. His hands were almost purple from the cold, his nails so dark they seemed black.

The village was a cacaphony among the thick foliage of the spruce forest, and what remained of the old house... He wouldn't even want to go back there, even if he managed to find the way back! The train station... maybe if he followed the rails to the next station...

The snow was so cold it was almost burning him, and his legs gave in to the elements, heavy from stress and cold. The snowy terrain now looked like a soft blanket, and the flakes from the sky were gently tucking him in.

His mind had grown quiet at last. He'd thought himself without hope when he'd lost himself to the devil's lies, but now was truly the moment. He had sinned, turned from God, brought his parents pain, and all for an idea that had stemmed from his sickness.

If he could go back, he'd happily leave all science in the darkness where it belonged, and shrug on a straightjacket, but it was all over.

"It's over for the both of us."

A wavering figure stood in the shadow, distorted feet leaving no imprint in the snow. For a fleeting moment Wilson thought it was his father, having found him somehow in his madness, but the figure dispersed, leaving only the scent of cigar and dust in its wake. The voice lingered, far too deep to be his father's, and cracked like a canyon's edge.

"I was so close this time..."

The snow turned from white to black, until everything had lost its colour and there was nothing.

Not too far away, the flesh-wooden puppet began to ooze red , and blackened fingers twitched in death. The cold air showcased a few shallow puffs of breath before it went still and cooled in the winter air.

######

*A newspaper headline from The Newtown Journal*

** Haunted town Shanter shocked by horrific murder! **

A series of strange events have shocked Shanter - a small town of 2,000 inhabitants - to its core.

Last friday human remains were recovered just outside the town following a panicked report by a local young woman.

Amongst the findings was the body of Wilson P. Higgsbury, who had gone missing several months earlier from his hometown.

Laying just outside the outerskirts of the small town, the victim, Wilson p. Higgsbury, was found almost unrecognizably maimed, having been turned into what some villagers have called a "wooden puppet". Other remains, including some yet unidentified mechanical and organic artifacts were retrieved later that day elsewhere in the forest.

The police are suspecting murder, and are on the lookout for a potential serial killer.

The house where the suspect was presumed to have lived - which laid just outside the town - was found burnt to the ground, including the immediate area surrounding the site.

Police are currently searching the woods for more clues, and several villagers have come to report strange happenings the have ocurred within their homes: the most prominent being rabbit carcasses and spoiled food.

Shanter was already known for its myths and ghost stories in the past, but the recent events have propelled its enigmatic reputation to new heights.


End file.
